I'd like to question something that I think is often taken for granted, or at least not spefically addressed often: Character improvement.

Is character improvement (improving character effectiveness, as Ron defines it) by metagame and/or reward mechanics a strictly Gamist tradition? I actually don't think that it is -- we have the examples in literature, for example, of the zero-to-hero routine. Taran Pig-Keeper becomes Taran High King. Pippin and Samwise are bumbling 'fraidy-cats who manage to become quite powerful heroes. There are others, I'm sure. Why not Simulate that in game, or make it the premise in a Narrative?

Ok, so it's clearly not special to Gamists trying to improve their character's effectiveness for competition.

But, do we take it for granted that it is?

I see two practical approaches fairly frequently, and I'd like to suggest they're sometimes seen as polar opposites for which I'd like to explore some correction.

It is my observation (and certainly a debatable one) that "normal" folks who play most any RPG desire some mechanics to improve their characters. It's just taken for granted. You play. You get experience. Your character gets better/tougher/more powerz/whatever. Further, I think there is a desire in many role-players to enjoy prolonged campaigns, in which they play a single character for a prolonged time, ever increasing his effectiveness.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the notion that we should really be doing shorter-term, even "one-shot" (sorry Jared!) sessions of games like InSpectres or Dust Devils, and improving character effectiveness is pretty irrelevant because next week we're gonna play Universalis and a Sorcerer game after that, followed by Godlike, the Pool with dinosaurs, and then . . .

So, can a group satisfactorily play extended campaigns in some Simulationist (or whatever) game without any mechanic for character improvement, or does that clash with their taken-for-granted-presumption that a game should let you "get better at stuff?"

I'm asking all this in the Simulationist context because of the "Rethinking Simulationist Character Creation" thread in Indie Game Design, in which I offered up Avatar-13 sans metamechanics. Andrew Martin took on the "role" (for a bit of fun and to pose a valid viewpoint) that the Gamist gamer would break the system in a heartbeat.

I then got to wondering whether the metamechanic could do things that Ron suggested, like converting to some currency to "buy" social contacts and other elements rather than Effectiveness. What might such a metamechanic do for Simulationist games? I think I have a better handle on what a metamechanic can/should do for Narrativist games.

However, because of the historical "close relationship" between Gamist and Simulationist tradidtions, I don't think we've sufficiently figured out what a Simulationist metamechanic can and should reward and/or do.

Any thoughts? Am I making sense? Am I dead wrong about "Long term campaigns" vs. "Short term romps"?

Character Development and Character Improvement (or Advancement) are not one and the same. I'm not the first to make this point; it's relatively well established.

Do you really think that Pippin went up any "levels" in the LotR? No. The character's personality changes, his outlook changes. But he hasn't changed hardly at all in terms of "skills" or any of the sort of things that Character Improvement mechanics usually focus on. In fact, it terms of the story, the fact that he may have learned a little sword technique from Boromir is completely inconsequential. He never uses it successfully, IIRC. It's just plain not important.

What I'm saying is that all games should allow Character Development. Meaning that the character should be allowed to change. But Character Improvement is distinctly Gamist, and desired mostly due to tradition.

In a Sim game, it would be ridiculous to assume that if a character studies enough that he will not learn things. If the system relates to these things then they should change per the internal consistency of the world. Not via some unrellated mechanic unless that mechanic somehow rewards Sim play. Even then it would seem to be bad as it breaks in-game causality.

I can remember before learning of GNS that I really had problems with this idea (listening, Kirt?). I would go back and forth about how it was important that a character who was portrayed as learning should "advance" in that area. But then I would worry that players would not "adventure" but instead stay home and do nothing but learn. So I couldn't just reward that. So what do you do?

Well, this is incoherent design. I am trying to promote both Simulationist play, and Gamaist play, and, funny, there's just no way to do it here. I get that now. So what can I do now? I can realize that what I want is a particular sort of exploration, Sim.

Wait, you say, doesn't that mean that I'll have to reward the boring studying? Nope. That would be to say that I had to allow all things into the scope of my design, and that all players have an unstoppable Gamaist bent. What I can do is, say, limit the exploration to just the adventuring parts of the game. That is, I can just entirely ignore "Character Improvement". It's not something that I want people exploring in this game, so we'll ignore it.

Am I mad? Well, does InSpectres have character improvement? No, it has franchise improvement which promotes exploration, not Gamism (interesting how sharing does that).

So I'm not saying that one can't explore Improvement either. One could ahve a game about College or something. It just has to be presented in such a way as to not give some competitive edge.

Consider Pendragon. It's all about how a character changes. But are there any advantages to the changes (I'm talking the traits here, not skills)? Nope. The mechanic makes it completely Sim, devoid of any Gamist incentive at all.

So, yes, character change is great. But when it gives a character a comparative advantage in a game, that's when it's Gamist. If you want Sim, all you have to do is avoid that.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Actually, I think you're swinging pretty wide with that hammer, the one labelled "Itza Gamist!" I do agree with you, as you know, that Reward Systems can easily include little or no character-improvement.

I'll be addressing all this pretty carefully in the Gamist essay, but just as in the Sim one, reward systems remain awfully, awfully scattered vs. clumped, historically, across RPGs. I'm interested in everyone's viewpoint on this thread.

Best,
Ron

Interesting subject. Thanks for surfacing it.

Point of fact, origin of the quantified improvement represented in most RPGs seems to be an artifact of DnD leveling assumptions, but Ron's right in that it is endemic to most Sim games as well. GURPS, Pendragon, and Storyteller provide some examples of firmly entrenched character improvement systems. In S-F or even fantasy literature, the farmboy-to-hero arc represents only one type of story, usually closely tied to LotR clones or Star Wars style hero's journeys. See the interminable Wheel of Time malarkey for a prime example. Many, many other stories presume competent characters from the get-go, and skillsets remain fairly static through the ensuing story. What makes a difference in these latter stories is a change in character or development of a crucial insight that comes about as a result of repeated failure or adversity.

OK, it feels like I'm fumbling in the dark here, but of the systems I've been exposed to at present (not a comprehensive list of Forge games, by the way), only Everway and Trollbabe focus on a less quantified-development road. Though Trollbabe relationships might technically be considered quantifiable improvements in terms of their impact on a character's effectiveness, I see their tight integration to story choices made by the player as a distinguishing characteristic; they're not skills or powers that represent a growth in internal character capabilities. If there are games I've overlooked that minimize or eliminate the usual take on improvement, please thwack me with the information.

I've spoken to a surprising (to me) number of gamer friends who insist starting characters must be inexperienced. Particularly in d20, but certainly not unique to it, is the concept of youthful, inexperienced characters who undergo a progressive coming-of-age/leveling up series of adventures that ultimately transform them into epic heroes. Again, see Wheel of Time for an example if you can stomach it.

It's a real hurdle in approaching CRPG design, as RP character improvement is absolutely tied to the reward structure, but that's another story. One thing about The Pool that all my players commented on was that it didn't feel like they were creating the usual rookie character. Even there, though, some players focused on building up Traits as a way of improving character effectiveness. However, my Pool group displayed an interesting variation in this behavior. After the second session, they started to compare the number of words in their character stories. When Player Z missed a session and didn't get to add words to his story, he expressed his feeling of "lagging behind" the other players - but not in a bad sense. The stories seemed to take on a sort of "coolness" aura. As a benchmark, I was much more interested in pursuing their story investment than in their trait leveling, and I think if we'd continued the game beyond four sessions, character story development would have provided the "improvement fix."

Part of the problem is that few mechanics explicitly reflect character development, which can be an ineffable thing. Sure, you can gain Virtues or Flaws or accumulate or lose Humanity or Compassion, but I don't know that this stuff really reflects development in terms of it being the main thrust of a character narrative. Even most of the Virtue/Flaw stuff seems tacked on as a workaround, not as an explicit part of the rules. Frankly, the best development angle I've seen lie in Sorcerer's suggestion of a character rewrite following a drop to zero Humanity, and in Pendragon's personality meters. TROS may also have something along these lines with its Spiritual Attributes, but as these are spent to improve the character numbers elsewhere, my instinct says to lump 'em with XP systems for purposes of this discussion.

In my experience, RP character development usually results from player authorial choices that arise in reaction to severe in-game setbacks for the character. Improvement occurs as a quantifiable enhancement to the original character's internal resources. Further, improvement decisions usually involve optimizing the character to the level of competency the player wanted at the beginning of play. Hence, I'll propose the idea that most improvement systems, however unwittingly, reflect first a design decision to allay the players' frustration at being shackled during character generation, and second an effort to contain the scope of player "power" vis-a-vis the GM and setting.

Egad, what a muddle I've tossed out here. Bring out the analytical brooms, people.

Best,

Blake

I agree that reward systems need not be for improvement, Ron. Although, I'm not convinced how much "the rest of the world" does. I think this is one element of game design that gets included, whatever the game, just because that's what you do, because that's how it's always been done. Dust Devils even has this, because it was a "gaming assumption" I couldn't see otherwise (and if my hazy memory is right, you or someone else questioned it, even though it's a pretty minor aspect of the game).

I guess what I'm saying is that this is one of the things, along with others like "who narrates?", that I consider it a almost a duty to challenge in designing new games. That is, make games so that those "normal" gamers will realize many of the assumptions they define AS their hobby are only one variable WITHIN their hobby. It's one more step, however small, in changing the way people think about the hobby so that 1) they'll try something new and 2) other non-gamers might one day also take part, with no assumptions necessary to

By "normal," I mean gamers who are playing games like D&D and Storyteller and even games like Riddle of Steel, Fvlminata and Godlike.

I'd like to better undestand some examples of compelling (read: really fun over the longer term) reward systems that do not increase character effectiveness, and I can't point to any immediately. Whether that's because increasing effectiveness mechanics are actualy taken for granted as I suggested above, or because I simply do not recognize or am unable to think of good examples of games off the top of my head, I don't know. Likely the later.

If you have some examples in the coming essay, great. If you or others can share some specifics here, that's great too. I'm most interested right now in ones that promote longer term, "campaign" play of, say, more than a dozen sessions. I think we have ample evidece of games that don't do this that are generally aimed at shorter-term play -- octaNe, for example.

Well, I've on occassion suggested that there is no particualr reason a character should not be redesigned from time to time, possibly on my present thinking, at the start of each story. Anyway, I see no particular reason for keeping this habit, as I think of it.

. In S-F or even fantasy literature, the farmboy-to-hero arc represents only one type of story, usually closely tied to LotR clones or Star Wars style hero's journeys.

Matt, I'm really confused.

Yes, it's patently obvious that the "normal" way to play, or, IOW, the way that RPGs have been previously designed, is to have Improvement reward systems. That's a simple fact.

We're just agreeing that this needs to change for certain sorts of design. What's the debate about?

As far as examples, well, since this is a new idea there have been few reward systems that exist that emulate this design principle. Sorcerer is the only one that I can think of off the top. No character improvement rewards in that system. Yet I think that getting to refactor your character is a compelling reason to play towards a resolution of a kicker. And bonus dice are a compelling reward for excellent narration.

Are those sufficient?

Universalis is an interesing case. You are rewarded for creating conflict and merely for participating, and the reward allows you to continue to create change in the game. These things have nothing to do with Gamist character improvement (though one can improve characters if one likes). Universalis has not been around long enough to know whether it can promote long-term play.

Perhaps a game that has a non-character improvement reward mechanic that supports long-term play does not exist. Hero Wars would be a debatable example. Aria? TROS?

But let's say it doesn't exist. The question is do we want such a game? Assuming so (if not, then this whole discussion is pointless), then all we need to do is develop one. What would it look like? Perhaps something that set up destinies for the characters that had to be achieved incrementally, each taking several session to accomplish. Not improvement, just steps on the road to a final destiny. Just an example.

Whatever. I'm certain it can be done if that's a design spec you're looking for.

Mike

szilard wrote: Do we even need a "reward" system? What are we rewarding?

Mike Holmes wrote: Matt, I'm really confused.
Yes, it's patently obvious that the "normal" way to play, or, IOW, the way that RPGs have been previously designed, is to have Improvement reward systems. That's a simple fact.

We're just agreeing that this needs to change for certain sorts of design. What's the debate about?

Mike Holmes wrote:
As far as examples, well, since this is a new idea there have been few reward systems that exist that emulate this design principle. Sorcerer is the only one that I can think of off the top. No character improvement rewards in that system. Yet I think that getting to refactor your character is a compelling reason to play towards a resolution of a kicker. And bonus dice are a compelling reward for excellent narration.

Are those sufficient?

Mike Holmes wrote:
But let's say it doesn't exist. The question is do we want such a game? Assuming so (if not, then this whole discussion is pointless), then all we need to do is develop one. What would it look like? Perhaps something that set up destinies for the characters that had to be achieved incrementally, each taking several session to accomplish. Not improvement, just steps on the road to a final destiny. Just an example.

Mike Holmes wrote: Do you really think that Pippin went up any "levels" in the LotR? No. The character's personality changes, his outlook changes. But he hasn't changed hardly at all in terms of "skills" or any of the sort of things that Character Improvement mechanics usually focus on. In fact, it terms of the story, the fact that he may have learned a little sword technique from Boromir is completely inconsequential. He never uses it successfully, IIRC. It's just plain not important.

Mike Holmes wrote: A while back Walt and some others talked about a system that would have the two basic character types: the pro, and the improving character. As now, the question was how to reward the pro. One suggestion comes to mind that the pro is already rewarded with instant protagonism in the form of effectiveness that's higher than that of the rest of the characters. Boromir does not improve. He doesn't have to to be cool.

xiombarg wrote: Mekton Zeta was also notable in its very Simulationist attitude toward the Anime mecha genre: Characters were either "rookie" or "experienced". Rookie characters had very low skills, but could increase them greatly through play, like Rick Hunter in Robotech. "Experienced" characters had high skill levels, but they didn't increase them much during play, like Roy Fokker in Robotech. This very much was like character "advancement" works in a lot of mecha-oriented Anime -- either a character goes from competent to incompetent rapidly or remains more or less the same throughout a given Anime series.

I suspect that there's a haunting, unacknowledged presence here that's confusing matters: Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. As you probably all know, Campbell proposes a model story of the hero-quest, with a series of fairly fixed stages. Lucas drew very heavily on this model for Star Wars: A New Hope (and to some degree for the other films).

Now the model is certainly powerful and interesting, but the problem I'm seeing cropping up here has to do with Campbell's pervasive influence on notions of "the mythic," which tend to bleed into ideas of storytelling in general in RPGs. What I mean is, I think that a lot of games, whatever their GNS priorities (or incoherence), would like to draw on models with this high mythic flavor. They want the story that's told over the course of the campaign to "feel" like "real myth." And since Campbell has largely set the field of discourse for what that sort of story feels like, with help from Lucas, many games feel it incumbent upon them to mechanically "force" the hero-quest. (Incidentally, you see this model very forcefully applied in lots of modern fantasy, including the Wheel of Interminability.)

The usual way of doing this, of course, is through character improvement mechanics. Luke the Jedi is not the same as Luke the Farmboy, and so on. The question is thus twofold:

1. If you want to produce the hero-quest, is mechanical improvement the way to go about it? This seems to be largely the intended focus of debate here.

2. Do you want to produce the hero-quest at all? I see no particular reason to retain that model. It's suitable for various kinds of stories, but by no means all of them. And if you're not hero-questing, there may well be no reason to "build up" characters in this manner --- that is, it may never even arise as a conception, except through atavistic clinging to tradition.

Chris,

Interesting. It makes me wonder if it's taken for granted, like the subject suggest and advancement is just a symptom of what's going on.

I'll try to explain. My friend, the GM, is very *very* emphatic that the PCs are "the heroes." This may explain his take on kpfs I mention over in Actual Play. "The heroes," whatever the hell that means.

It is possible that character advancement is a feature of the PCs being "the heroes" even though not all PCs are really what can be called "THE heroes."

Jack,

If you're saying what I think you're saying, it sounds right to me. Isn't that helpful? :)

I think you're saying that in a hero-quest, not everybody can be the hero. You have to have the Guide (Obi-Wan, for example), and so forth. So you can't try to make the Guide go through the whole hero-quest thing, or it all falls apart. You've got to choose one PC to be the hero, and let everyone else keep the story in the air.

If you think about it this way, one neat advantage is that although the hero is going to be very central, and at the end be a Hero in capital letters, the other people are the ones with a clue initially. At the beginning, Luke is a whiny schmuck --- but Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master, and Han is a hotshot pilot, and Leia is a tough-ass princess, and so on. So the "secondary" characters are the ones with powerful characters on paper, which ought to satisfy them. Besides, they can enjoy being patronizing and annoying to the would-be hero ("Hey, I've been all over this quadrant and I've never seen anything I'd call 'the Force'," or whatever).

Is that what you meant?

Matt Snyder wrote: It is my observation (and certainly a debatable one) that "normal" folks who play most any RPG desire some mechanics to improve their characters. It's just taken for granted. You play. You get experience. Your character gets better/tougher/more powerz/whatever. Further, I think there is a desire in many role-players to enjoy prolonged campaigns, in which they play a single character for a prolonged time, ever increasing his effectiveness.

I think there may be a link between the Campbellian myth, the issue over inititiations discussed elsewhere, and the age of most RPG players when they start. To me, it seemed as an adolescent player, that to some extent we were RPing our development into competent adults. Here I see the Anima anology; the heroes grow quickly because like adolescents, their rate of physical developement is much higher than that of the incumbent adults in any social office - warband, working group, council, whatever. There comes a point, however, at which the student supercedes the master - this I think is the Anime crux at which the new character defeats the more established/experienced character. Compare with the turn over of late-teen/early-adult sports stars.

clehrich wrote: If you're saying what I think you're saying, it sounds right to me. Isn't that helpful? :)

I think you're saying that in a hero-quest, not everybody can be the hero.

Jack,

Now I'm entirely in agreement. The absorption of the Campbellian hero-quest into RPGs has, I think, a tremendous impact on the idea of character development as power-up. To effect this, the traditional model was to turn it into a pinball game, as you say --- to extrapolate everything as points and flashing lights. But the effect, as you say, is that you have a system which bears no relation to the hero-quest unless you already know that it's supposed to be similar.

Still, I think rather than necessarily moving towards setting up to do the hero-quest "right," we ought to recognize the model for what it is and set it aside when it's not necessary --- along with power-ups and other artefacts of confused modeling.

clehrich wrote: I think you're saying that in a hero-quest, not everybody can be the hero. You have to have the Guide (Obi-Wan, for example), and so forth. So you can't try to make the Guide go through the whole hero-quest thing, or it all falls apart. You've got to choose one PC to be the hero, and let everyone else keep the story in the air.

Andrew Martin wrote: When I (and my fellow players) repeatedly used my second game system (Swift) that only had two outcomes for skill/attribute rolls, success (often) and success with difficulties (infrequent), I was amazed at the difference in player behaviour. They relaxed and did interesting things, acted like heroes (as their characters) and so on. There was virtually no demand from the players for character advancement (increased character power), beyond that generated by the actions of the characters (studying a new language, learning a new magic spell book and so on).

clehrich wrote: Still, I think rather than necessarily moving towards setting up to do the hero-quest "right," we ought to recognize the model for what it is and set it aside when it's not necessary --- along with power-ups and other artefacts of confused modeling.

Andrew Martin wrote: ...game system (Swift) that only had two outcomes for skill/attribute rolls, success (often) and success with difficulties (infrequent), I was amazed at the difference in player behaviour. They relaxed and did interesting things, acted like heroes (as their characters) and so on.

clehrich wrote: I think you're saying that in a hero-quest, not everybody can be the hero.

xiombarg wrote: Then, the mechanics (in terms of rewards and improvement) for each player are DIFFERENT, according to archetype.

xiombarg wrote: Actually, you could hang an interesting game on that. Decide on Setting and Color for your hero quest. Everyone picks a Campbellian archetype important in the Hero Quest, including one (and only one) Hero. Then, the mechanics (in terms of rewards and improvement) for each player are DIFFERENT, according to archetype. The Hero is rewarded by increased effectiveness. The Guide is pretty effective to begin with, and is rewarded with narrative control -- the advice he gives can be "made to be true" through some metagame mechanic. (Also, once during the story the Guide can totally transform when defending the Hero against great evil, like Obi-Wan dying and getting a nifty ghost body, or Gandalf becoming Gandalf the White.)

As far as incorporating different levels of competency in PC's, it is pretty easy in mainly Sim point based systems. I like setting a starting point total, and let PC's go into 'point debt' if they want someone more wise or powerful. Now, you obviously don't want to allow debt beyond the expected gain from the campaign. The less competent characters will improve (as per the hero quest) and the more competent ones won't (they'll be paying off their debt). This wouldn't work for a heavy Gamist design, but allowing different competency levels with a Gamist priority seems like a rotten idea anyway.

The 'hero questing' character's shouldn't feel cheated because it was their choice. They wanted to nuture something and see it grow.
If everyone wants someone more wise and powerful, then I guess you need to scale your game up.

This is just a hack onto existing systems like Storyteller or GURPS, and as such may not be optimal...but I find that it works.

Expanding on Jason's idea, and the notion that the heor questing characters become more powerful potentially in the end than their non-questing compatiriots, one could simply charge interest for debt. For example, Player A starts out spending his alloted 100 points on his character, and no debt. Player B spends 200 on his character, and therefore accrues a 100 point debt with, for ease, 100% interest. Thus, in order to be able to "advance" again, he needs to pay off 200 points. So, if both characters earn 300 points, Player A's character will be at 400 points, and Player B's character will only be at 300 (200+300-200). No early payoffs. This makes debt a serious consideration at the start.

One could also play around with this so as to allow a player in debt to go further in debt when appropriate. Perhaps there is some maximum to which they can be leveraged or some such (to maintian the desire to pay off the debt). Lot's of other cool stuff one could do with this, I imagine.

Mike

As for Heroes, if anyone is interested I have been writing an RPGnet column on the very notion of What is a Hero? You can find it here: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/collists/heroes.html Its not a sop to get you to read my column but I honestly think it may have something to add the above discussion on Hero Assumption.

Anyway. Character Development. This discussion (and I am sorry I missed it at first) is very much where I was trying to go with my currency issue in the Indie Game Design Forum. Thats here. The idea was to have a Character's Goal or goals reward them with improved Abilities of a sort. Of course at the time I did not take into effect Failure and I am working on that idea as well. People learn from Failure as well as Success after all.

I think there is a concern of perspective here as well as a concept of change over time. If a game is short term in terms In-Game time i.e. something like 24, clearly although a person may learn things about themselves in one day they are not likely to graduate demolitions school or become beauty experts in that time.

If a game is short term as far as Out of Game time but long term in game, characters will need to change, not necassarily improve. Although if you play out the life of a Kingdom over 70 years in game and 4 hours real time, I would imagine that at some point, regardless of competetive advantage, some skills may indeed imrpove.

Now I am going to make a Realism Assumption and I realise that many games have made this same Assumption previously: In a Long Term simulating Long Term in game time (months years etc) it seems logical that a character will develop emotionally and physically as well as gain new insights into abilities. Insights = Skills or Health or Powers in this case. Its hard to imagine that would not happen even if the starting characters were very experienced. After all, Character Development can be an awakening of certain Powers. Paul Atraedes, Neo from Matrix, Luke Skywalker who goes through training and epiphany of a sorts. In many circumstances these awakened abilities will give an advantage of some sort. Only Neo could fight the Machine, big Advantage there. Now does this make such an awakening/imrpovement Gamist? I am not sure that it does ( I could be wrong.)

Jack, I think you make a very good point about RPG Design Assumptions. Clearly somewhere there is a Checklist of what must be part of the game or else its not RPG or the RPG is lacking something. Now I think any game design will make assumptions, the problem arises when it makes the same assumptions as every other game design.

Sean
ADGBoss

The use of the term hero-quest here hasn't been sitting well with me. I haven't read Campell, but it strikes me that there is a similarity between the mythic hero-quest and D&D leveling up or gaining skill point or whatnot, but they are not the same thing and I don't think we should confuse the two.

I'll use Star Wars, since it's the only example of it I'm familiar with. Unlike the 36 levels of D&D (the version *I* know, anyway) Luke goes through three stages of development: farm boy to jedi-in-training to jedi knight. That's it. This is more than just counting stages. Ron had noted in the Fantasy Heartbreakers essays/discussion that D&D character development has basically three stages, regardless of level number:

a prolonged "weeny" stage, a brief "pretty damn good" stage, and an upwardly-spiralling "unstoppable" stage

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:


• The boy shows promise At this stage, he skows that he has the natural gift it takes to be the hero. This is similar to Keanu Reeves's Neo from the Matrix. He has potential to be the hero and begins his journey to become that hero. Although untrained with this raw talent, Luke is far from a "weeny." He's a good shot, and expert pilot and blew up the frickin' Death Star. Hardly qualifies as a weeny. (A better example of "weeny" lies in computer games like Dragon Warrior where low-level character have no business fighting anything tougher than "slimes.")
• Not ready yet The hero is well on his way to becoming the hero, but he is not ready yet. The point here is that although the hero has learned much, he still has much to learn.
• Ready The training is done, and now it is time for the hero to fulfill his destiny.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: I'll use Star Wars, since it's the only example of it I'm familiar with. Unlike the 36 levels of D&D (the version *I* know, anyway) Luke goes through three stages of development: farm boy to jedi-in-training to jedi knight. That's it.

That last bit may be a big reason why plain old character advancement should not be confused with the hero-quest. The hero-quest has a purpose. There is something the hero is preparing to do, like overthrowing an evil galactic empire. That sort of thing. Character advancement *might* have such a grand purpose if the players decides to inject it into the game, but mostly it's about being able to kill tougher and more interesting monsters.

Right. For Champions this was called the "Radiation Accident". However, in that text they just sugggested saving up for it. The problem becomes incentivizing such. Perhaps if each point so invested were doubled. That would give a lot of incentive to find such a master (or have such an accident).

Perhaps too much. As a pacing thing, perhaps the player would have to save up some fraction of the points before hand.

Also, once achieving mastery, how long does the character have before his dramatic potential is over. Can anyone give an example from literature of a character that takes a while to become powerful, and then spends a long time being powerful? Isn't the trip the point of such a character?

Mike

Emily Care wrote: So it sounds like you're drawing a distinction, Jack, between character advancement per se, where resources are accrued or abilities increased, and an arc of character development that is dynamic, and has dramatic tension. The purpose you talk about transforms a character's history from an acquisition fest to a heroic quest.

John Kim wrote: Hmm. I think there is some degree to which Luke having these three stages is simply a product of his appearing in exactly three movies. For example, Harry Potter definitely develops, but I don't think you can as easily break down the 4+ books into these three stages.

Maybe someone who had actually read Campell should comment.

Mike Holmes wrote: Can anyone give an example from literature of a character that takes a while to become powerful, and then spends a long time being powerful? Isn't the trip the point of such a character?

Mike Holmes wrote: Also, once achieving mastery, how long does the character have before his dramatic potential is over. Can anyone give an example from literature of a character that takes a while to become powerful, and then spends a long time being powerful? Isn't the trip the point of such a character?

Mike Holmes wrote:
Also, once achieving mastery, how long does the character have before his dramatic potential is over. Can anyone give an example from literature of a character that takes a while to become powerful, and then spends a long time being powerful? Isn't the trip the point of such a character?

Mike

I'm dubious of most of these examples. I am familiar with Campbells work (the Bill Moyers tapes have him talking about Star Wars quite a bit, and I believe he was even on the set for part of the filming of the first trillogy), and his Hero has very specific attributes. Superman, Holmes, Tarzan, Drizzt (ick), none of them have these characteristics. Superman hass no history except that which is added later in explanatory mode. Holmes has no build up, he's superman from day one as well (and, unsurprisingly one of my favorite characters).

Tarzan's growth is discussed in one chapter, IIRC, and has little to do with the plot other than as setup for the story. His is a story of a lost heritage, not of growth. Drizzt..eh..can't believe he was even brought up with these others. The power creep on pulp characters like Tarzan and Superman is a bad thing, not a good one. It comes from multiple writers taking control of the character and needing to outdo the previous author. There are better ways. One's that don't lead to the Crisis of Infinite Earths.

Bond never changes. His tech gets better, and the directors get bigger budgets, but Bond is Bond because Bond is Bond. Nothing appeals more than his consistency. He can lose a wife, a best friend, whatever. In the end he'll have offed the badguy and his henchmen, and have another girl in the sack. How can he grow? "Nobody does it better."

As for Luke Skywalker, it's not unimportant that Lucas shot the films in the order that he did. Luke's story gets told in the second trilogy (the first to be released), and as such, his story in the third trilogy will be that of a different character, almost certainly one who's much older (how genius is that; actually wait for the actors to age to the appropriate age before casting them as the same characters many years later). As such, this is a sequel, really, not a serial.

The point is that the action of all these stories either does not involve their development during the main portaion of the plot, or if it does, the story ends with the character reaching full development.

Horblower is the right model. Note how his story is serial, however, not fragmented. It's very much the soap opera model. If we want to look for characters who grow and then remain powerful later, we need to look at the Hornblower model, not the Skywalker model.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: The power creep on pulp characters like Tarzan and Superman is a bad thing, not a good one. It comes from multiple writers taking control of the character and needing to outdo the previous author. There are better ways. One's that don't lead to the Crisis of Infinite Earths.

Mike Holmes wrote: Bond never changes. His tech gets better, and the directors get bigger budgets, but Bond is Bond because Bond is Bond. Nothing appeals more than his consistency. He can lose a wife, a best friend, whatever. In the end he'll have offed the badguy and his henchmen, and have another girl in the sack. How can he grow? "Nobody does it better."

Mike Holmes wrote: Hornblower is the right model. Note how his story is serial, however, not fragmented. It's very much the soap opera model. If we want to look for characters who grow and then remain powerful later, we need to look at the Hornblower model, not the Skywalker model.

Actually I was thinking that the Slow growth starting from low level was the thing that the Hornblower model had hit. That is, I thought we were trying to find a dramatic mode that fit the old school method of character improvement. And I'd agree that Hornblower is the only character from literature that I've seen that fits the model.

Which means not that we need a new system for that model, but that to use the old system effectively we need to employ the ideas from the Hornblower literature. And lo, I think we've got it. Hornblower's compatriots as he begins are the other midshipmen (actually don't they mostly pic on him?). Anyhow, in a game with multiple characters you'd have players each playing their own midshipmen (or similar characters) through first the trials of that position, and later the demands of being an officer.

What do we see here? Well, there is an overarching organization keeping the characters together and being the measure of their development, even after they've become important. And you see this in many RPGs. GMs start the players out as the teens of a village, or the like. The characters who begin more powerfull are mentors who later become allies as the young characters pass them in proficiency.

This would be a good Sim way to use power progression, potentially. Still, I'd keep it as in-game and social as possible.

Hey, Max (AKA Balbinus), can you tell us about your Privateers and Gentlemen game, and how "advancement" works? IIRC, it's really all in game stuff, and the competition for it is actually pretty Gamist.

Mike

Hmm, I have some quibbles. I may have read a hornblower novel once, and I did recently see an episode the Brit TV series thats current. But, I think this approach opens up a monstrous can of worms:
1) Hornblower has a value-system approrpiate to the setting
2) historical verity and artistic license are not challenged by multiple authors
3) Hornblower is really in a form burecaratic career progression rather than personal growth.*
4) related to this is a certain element of social criticism inherent to the modern viewer
5) Horblower is capable of engaging appropriately with his problems**

So, while I think that a Hornblower RPG both could be done and should be done, to my mind it will need quite a radical re-approach to design. IMO, the above bears little resemblance to the "wandering looter" model so common in actual play. The central question comes down to this: is Hornblowers naval context the subject of play, or just a bit of character definition? For the game to focus gere, it would need to be former and designed accordingly.

* and thus can be contrasted with those who achieved rank through birth, wealth or connections. Career progression <> character growth; Hornblower may well become more effective in bureacratic terms, but whteher his personal kills improve is more open to doubt. Perhaps they do - but I doubt this is a focus of Hornblowers activities as they were in, say, Enders Game.

** Hornblower is equipped with an internalised understanding of his social context and its class structure; has been trained in naval warfighting, and can navigate. Of these, only one is likely to have detailed mechanical implementation in RPG.

Most of your points, Gareth, are exactly what I was getting at. That is, to have a game in which you use the more traditional powering up advancement that you often see, and have it be coherent with Sim play, you need to have some of the elements that you find in Hornblower. You are very correct that the wandering looter is the wrong dramatic context for this sort of thing to work. You need the structure and value system built into the system somehow.

OTOH, though a lot of Hornblower's progress is measured in terms of his ascendance up through th ranks, he also personally improves a tremendous amount. He goes from being a nearly timid midshipman with a lot of potential in terms of dilligence, but little real ability, to a confident ship captain of not just sufficient talent, but later a heroic level of ability. The social structure growth is paralleled by the personal skill development. He gets better at a number of classic RPG talents like Navigation, Leadership, and Tactics, stuff that comes out in the stories ( I have to admit that I've only done the cliffs notes on the literaure, and am going mostly from TV).

So, the effective parameters of Horblower's character and environment are exactly what you need to have to make such a game, one that wants to be Sim, but also wants to have traditional character improvement in it's design.

All this said, I think that we've gone a long way to find an operative model. There may be others, but I suspect that they are just as difficult to ferret out. My overall point would be, unless you find that your design somehow is heading directly towards something that you can see is going to be supported by such a system, go for something else.

Just how I see it.

And BTW, as I hinted, the game has already been created, it's called Privateers and Gentlemen. FGU, I think, from the wayback.

Mike

An absolutely fantastic game trapped in the unfortuneate body of the FGU house engine, which relied on poor organization, horribly primitive layout, arcane abbreviations for everything (reading an FGU game is like reading newspaper classified...they were obsessed with cutting word count) and tons of crunchy bits about 1/2 - 2/3s of which are the kind of setting specific crunchy bits that make genre emulation fans like me drool profusely and the rest were the endless trivial minutia that "just play already" people like me find unbearable. <in case it isn't obvious I have a long standing love hate relationship with FGU>

The full box set also contained the single best set of age of sail sailing rules for table top minis play ever written (although the gunnery and damage tracking rules were weak).

At any rate, I've read all of the Hornblower books about 8 times and the A&E special were surprisingly accurate. They rearranged the order of some critical points, compress a few characters together and such, but on the whole it was a faithful adaptation in the same sense that Peter Jacksons LotR is a faithful adaptation...in spirit if not in every detail.

And?

(Mike points back at the rest of the thread wondering if Ralph will comment on the subject as it pertains to P&G and Hornblower)